Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Musical Cow

“No, no,” Trenton interrupted hurriedly. “Don’t do that. I don’t want him to snap at me.”

Dr. Dixon’s smile indicated that he felt one who was afraid of a dog would never do much towards training him.

“I’m not afraid of him,” Trenton hurried to explain. “I don’t want him to snap at me — not yet. Now keep walking past me, back and forth, don’t circle so much, just walk straight on one side and then on the other, gradually increasing the length of the leash.”

Dr. Dixon followed instructions. The dog kept pulling away towards the extreme end of the leash.

Trenton studied the animal, a big deep-chested German Shepherd, with a worried pucker around the forehead over the centre of the eyes, a heavy coat which was sufficiently lacking in gloss to show that the financial difficulties of his former master had resulted in a curtailed diet, deficient in proper vitamins.

Rob Trenton waited for the propitious moment, then suddenly said to Dr. Dixon, “All right, give me the end of the rope on the leash, then walk entirely away.”

“You mean that you want...”

“The end of the rope, please,” Trenton said firmly.

“But, good Lord, man, he’ll come after you and...”

“Please, quickly,” Trenton said, “the end of the rope.”

Dr. Dixon tossed him the end of the rope.

“Now get away,” Trenton said.

The dog, suddenly finding himself leashed to the stranger who was sitting calmly in the middle of the deck, drew sharply back on the leash, stretching the rope taut.

“What’s the matter, Lobo?” Rob asked.

The dog growled, bared his teeth.

Trenton merely laughed and said, “You’re going to have to get accustomed to me, fellow,” then turning away from the dog, addressed a remark to Harvey Richmond who was some distance away, an interested spectator.

“You can see the trouble with the animal,” Trenton said, in a conversational tone. “The dog misses his master. He’s probably never sailed on a ship, but he realizes he is on a ship and that there’s no chance of swimming back to rejoin his former master. Naturally he’s nervous and irritable and he needs reassurance and a certain amount of affection.”

Rob turned suddenly to the dog and said, “Don’t you, Lobo, old man?”

The dog continued to pull back.

“Come, Lobo,” Trenton said.

The dog bared his fangs.

“I said come ,” Trenton repeated firmly.

The dog stood growling.

“Come!” Trenton said.

Abruptly, Trenton started hauling in on the rope, pulling the dog across the deck towards him. “I said come. Come, Lobo... Come!”

The animal continued to pull back against the rope. The growling became more ominous.

“Good Lord,” Dr. Dixon said, starting forward. “He’ll...”

“Keep out of this,” Trenton ordered. “Lobo, come.”

He kept pulling on the leash, the dog holding back, and continuing to growl. The animals’ claws scraped the deck for an inch or two, then he grudgingly yielded ground and advanced, pulled by the leash, one reluctant step after another. Rob Trenton reached out, hooked his left hand in the animal’s collar, flung his right hand around the shoulders and said, “Down, boy,” at the same time pressing down on the shoulders. “Down, Lobo.”

The dog hesitated a moment, growling ominously, then lay down, his head within an inch or two of Rob’s leg, fangs still bared.

Rob held his left hand on the collar, his right hand over the animal’s shoulder. He looked up to Dr. Dixon and Harvey Richmond and said, “Now please don’t make any exclamations of surprise, or act as though there’s anything out of order, just carry on, please, with an ordinary conversation.”

Dr. Dixon looked as if he might protest, but thought better of it and said, “I understand.”

Richmond said, “It’s hard to act natural about a thing like that. I certainly thought you were going to have your throat torn out.”

Trenton kept his eyes on the two men, but the fingers of his right hand slowly began to twist in the hair along the dog’s shoulder, moving over more to the animal’s shoulder muscles and his throat. “Poor devil,” Trenton said, “he’s completely perplexed. He doesn’t know whether his master left him with Dr. Dixon and the doctor is stealing him, or whether he’s been abandoned, or what has happened. In any event, he’s all at sea... and I don’t mean that as a pun.”

His hand moved around until he was stroking the animal’s throat with a steady, easy gesture of caressing fingers that moved with calm assurance. Now, for the first time, he turned to the dog. “Too bad, boy,” he said sympathetically. “You need a little reassurance, and you need a lot of affection.”

The animal looked up at Trenton. He had ceased growling now. He moved his head a couple of inches so that his muzzle rested on Trenton’s leg.

“Good dog,” Trenton said.

Abruptly he heard a spatter of applause and looked up.

From the boat deck a dozen or so curious passengers had been watching the little drama which was being enacted on the lower deck. Now they expressed their appreciation and admiration spontaneously.

Trenton noticed only that Linda Carroll, her eyes wide, was standing close to the rail, looking down at them, and that beside her Merton Ostrander stood, completely fascinated. Linda’s hands were moving rapidly in enthusiastic applause. Merton Ostrander clapped a half dozen times, then put his hands on the rail. His face held a puzzled frown. Quite evidently he was in deep thought.

Trenton turned his attention to the dog, caressing him now, soothing the taut muscles with the tips of understanding fingers, his voice conveying reassurance and affection.

After some ten minutes, Trenton stood up. “I think I’ll take him to the kennel now, if you don’t mind,” he said to Dr. Dixon. “You may walk alongside of me.”

They walked up the stairs to the dog’s kennel. The passengers who had been interested spectators started to crowd around, but Trenton waved them back. “Please,” he said. “The dog’s nervous. Please, everyone keep away.”

They walked up to the kennel. Dr. Dixon opened the door and Rob Trenton said, “All right, Lobo, in you go,” and unfastened the leash as the dog entered the kennel.

Dr. Dixon dropped the door shut.

Suddenly Rob Trenton felt his muscles begin to tremble convulsively. He realized that he had used more nerve energy, more vitality in the test than he had anticipated.

“I think, if you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll go back to bed. I didn’t realize how weak I was.”

Linda Carroll came pushing forward. “Rob,” she said, “it was wonderful! You were simply marvelous!”

Her hand rested on his arm. Her eyes grew quick with alarm. “Why, Rob, you’re... trem...”

His eyes pleaded with her for silence.

She caught herself in mid-sentence. “You’re simply marvelous,” she ended lamely.

“I’m still pretty much under the weather,” Rob muttered.

He felt as though he might be walking in his sleep as he moved along the ship’s corridor, down the stairs, back to his stateroom, where he collapsed on the bed.

A few seconds later, Harvey Richmond and Dr. Dixon were in the doorway.

“You all right?” Richmond asked.

Rob nodded.

“You shouldn’t have undertaken anything like that while you’re as weak as you are,” Dr. Dixon said. “It was wonderful. I never saw anything like it. How did you know he wasn’t going to bite you?”

“I didn’t,” Rob admitted weakly. “He could have, but the dog needed someone to make him obey. He needed companionship, he needed to be given a sense of reassurance. You may have noticed I ordered you around rather sharply. I’m sorry, but that was part of the training. When the dog heard you taking orders from me, it gave me a certain advantage. Good Lord, I didn’t realize how weak I was!”